Hue Can Do… Part 2: How to Sync Philips Hue to your Favourite Music

It's official – people are going out less and less. And with more people opting to stay in, the battle for the best house party is getting hotter every year. And now you can truly turn your living room into a dance floor with Philips Hue – an innovative LED smart lighting system that can be synced to your favourite tunes to really get the party started. If you haven't heard of Philips Hue, here's a quick breakdown.

Philips Hue: the latest in lighting entertainment

Philips Hue, like Amazon's Alexa and Nest Thermostat, is another smart home innovation that aims to make your life easier and more efficient, as well as being a great entertainment piece. The energy efficient Philips Hue LED bulbs operate via the Philips Hue bridge that connects to your router. You then control the bulbs through the Philips Hue app, which is available for Apple and Android devices. From the app, you can control up to 50 bulbs simultaneously. You can also set up motion sensors, choose from 16 millions colour tones, and sync your home lighting with movies and music.

Setting up Philips Hue

So, you're now probably wondering how Philips Hue can make your music more immersive. Firstly, you need to connect the Philips Hue bridge to your router before downloading a third party app. This will take you less than 5 minutes. The app you need to use is called'Hue Disco' for Apple and Android devices. Hue Disco is not available for Windows devices, so you'll need hueDynamic instead. Now you have the bridge system connected and the app downloaded, you need to add the Philips Hue LED bulbs to the app so you can start controlling them from your phone. To do this, you simply need to connect the app to each bulb or group of bulbs. Ready? Good. Let's get the party started then...

How to turn your living room into a dance floor with Philips Hue

Hue Disco app for Apple and Android devices.

The app is able to detect the rhythm and pace of the music you're playing through your device's microphone. The microphone is also highly intuitive and can detect music playing at low volumes. So, whether you're playing a melodic blues number or fast-paced dance track, your bulbs will react to the music with matching light effects. Here are some of the great features that come with the app (feature names may vary across different devices): • Mood function. Select a pre-set selection of colours that change over a chosen frequency • Sensitivity sliders. Select how sensitive the lighting is to the music and how often your lights change to the beat and rhythm • Brightness and colour sliders. Switch between subtle, romantic tones to vibrant and eclectic party colours using the brightness and colour sliders. • Strobe effects. Mix it up and flick through a selection of funky strobe effects to really bring the party home You can find out more about different third party apps for Philips Hue here.